Tri-City smokers can get their nicotine fix at e-cigarette café

Travis and Liz Scheibe have opened The Vapor Fix Café at 450 Williams Blvd. Ste. B in Richland. The business offers electronic cigarettes and a tasting bar for customers to try out different vapor flavors.

By Veronica Sandate Craker

Travis and Liz Scheibe, of West Richland, were ready to quit their bad habits.

Liz Scheibe was a longtime smoker and her husband, Travis Scheibe, was addicted to chewing tobacco.

“We both tried to quick smoking and chewing several times and it just never worked,” Liz Scheibe said. “Somehow it always manages to suck you back in.”

In March, Liz Scheibe decided to try out the latest craze of electronic cigarettes. What she found was that not only did it help her kick the habit, but also she really liked trying the different flavors and products.

“I liked it so much we jokingly said ‘hey we should have one of these businesses,’” Scheibe said. “So the next thing you know we have an e-cigarette business.”

In June, the couple opened The Fix Vapor Café at 450 Williams Blvd. Ste. B in Richland.

It’s the first store of its kind in Richland. The e-cigarette shop 9’s in Kennewick also opened this year at 3902 W. Clearwater Ave.

As a smoker Liz Scheibe said she spent around $200 a month on cigarettes. Meanwhile the e-cigarettes prices range anywhere from $30 to $150.

Electronic cigarettes come with three components. There’s the liquid, the vessel that holds the liquid and the battery that warms the liquid the create the vapor.

“It’s kind of like soda pop — it has a bunch of different flavors,” Travis Scheibe said. “People are interested in their flavors and what they taste like.”

Right now the most popular flavor in their shop is the mango peach, put together by Liz Scheibe who admits she has a love affair with all things peach mango.

“All of our flavors have gone over real well,” Travis Scheibe said. “We sell a premium liquid. It’s 100 percent made in the USA, all the ingredients are made in the USA and even the bottles are made in the USA.”

To help their customers try out different vapors, they offer a tasting bar featuring all of the varying flavors.

“It’s a nice option to be able to try it before you buy it,” Liz Scheibe said. “One of the downsides of ordering online is if you buy something that’s not good — which we’ve had happen to us numerous times —you’re stuck with it.”

The laws on e-cigarettes are still forming, but businesses are prohibited from selling them to minors.

For now, the Scheibes are working to get their business name out in the community while cultivating the product line.

“This is an ever growing industry and our plan is to stay on the cutting edge,” said Liz Scheibe.

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Pasco School District seeks Enterprise Week volunteers

The Pasco School District is seeking volunteers for its 15th Annual Enterprise Week. The weeklong program provides seniors from Chiawana, New Horizons and Pasco high schools the opportunity to experience the business world by developing a new product and working as a company team to build a supporting business for that product. Company advisors are needed as well as judges. Company advisors are assigned a company of 14 to 15 students to mentor through the business operating cycle. Advisors are needed daily between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Judges are needed Dec. 4 to review the work of student companies in the area of marketing, human resources and digital story board, and on Dec. 5 to judge stockholder presentations and the culminating tradeshow. Shifts are two hours or less and no experience is necessary. For more information or to sign up, contact the Enterprise Week office at 543-6700 or visit the Enterprise website at http://www.psd1.org/Domain/775.